Pesticide Perceptions

EPA Announces Comprehensive Plan for Protecting Food Safety, Regulating Pesticides Under the 1996 Food Quality Protection Act

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today issued a comprehensive, detailed plan for implementing the 1996 Food Quality Protection Act (FQPA). The new law includes sweeping new food safety protections and requires major changes in how pesticides are regulated, with the goal of improving environmental and public health protection, especially for children.

Quality Protection Act is one of the most significant pieces of legislation enacted in the past two decades," said EPA Administrator Carol M. Browner." We are committed to providing greater assurance that infants and children are protected from pesticide risks, expanding the pubic right-to-know about pesticides, and using the best Available science in reaching our regulatory decisions as we carry out this important new plan.

The FQPA Implementation Plan is based on five guiding principles that will govern the Agency's actions: sound science; a protective, health-based approach to food safety; promotion of safer, effective pest control methods; an open, fair and consistent process that involves consultation with stakeholders and an informed public; and public accountability of EPA's actions and resources to achieve the goals of the law.

The major provisions of the new law include:

• Establishing a single, health-based standard for all pesticide residues in food, whether raw or processed;
• Providing for a more thorough assessment of potential risks, with special protections sensitive populations, such as infants and children;
• Requiring EPA to reassess roughly 9,000 existing tolerances (maximum legally permissible residue levels in food) to ensure they meet the new standard;
• Requiring EPA to develop consumer information, to be displayed in grocery stores, on the risks and benefits of pesticides used in or on food, as well as recommendations to consumers for reducing dietary exposure to pesticides while maintaining a healthy diet; and
• Ensuring that all pesticides will be periodically re-evaluated to make sure they meet current testing and safety standards.

Among the major reforms of FQPA are requirements that EPA routinely address a number of new considerations in establishing tolerances for pesticide residues in food. Many of these new provisions raise complex scientific issues and call for new policies and evaluation methods. EPA has already brought a number of these issues before expert scientific review panels and will continue to consult with these expert bodies as implementation proceeds. Specifically, FQPA requires EPA to:

• use an extra safety factor in conducting risk assessments to assure the protection of infants and children;
• assess total pesticide exposure from all non occupational sources including through the diet, in drinking water, and as a result of household pesticide use;
• assess effects of exposure to multiple pesticides with a common mechanism of toxicity;
• assess effects of in utero exposure; and
• assess potential effects on the endocrine system.

"The FQPA calls for a comprehensive overhaul of pesticide policies and we are working with leading scientists and other interested groups to update and reinvent our procedures and scientific approaches as called for by this law," said Dr. Lynn Goldman, EPA Assistant Administrator for Prevention, Pesticides and Toxic Substances. "In the meantime, we must continue to make decisions and move ahead. We have adopted interim measures to ensure that decisions meet the new requirements of the law, including decisions on new pesticide registrations and the establishment of new tolerances for residues in food."

Soon after FQPA was enacted, EPA convened a broadly representative, high level Food Safety Advisory Committee to advise the Agency on strategic implementation issues. The Committee met in public sessions four times and concluded its work in December. EPA also established a new Endocrine Disruptors Screening and Testing Advisory Committee which met in December and February. This group is working to develop a chemical screening and testing program to assess potential estrogenic and other hormonal effects as required by FQPA and the Safe Drinking Water Amendments of 1996. EPA is also continuing to consult with the ongoing Pesticide Program Dialogue Committee, including the formation of a working group to address such major new efforts on the development of consumer right-to-know information on pesticides for display in retail stores.

Since the FQPA was passed in August 1996, relying on the interim strategy released earlier this year, the Agency has registered six new conventional pesticides active ingredients (two of which are reduced risk products), 10 new biological pesticides and one new anti-microbial pesticide. EPA has also granted 52 emergency exemptions requested by the states facing critical pest control needs to deal with pest outbreaks that could not be controlled by currently registered products.

The Implementation Plan and additional information on FQPA and its implementation are available through the Office of Pesticide Programs Public Docket located at 1921 Jefferson Davis Highway, Arlington, Va., Rm. 1132; telephone: 703-305-5805. Information is also posted on the Internet: http://www.epa.gov/opppsps1/FQPA.

Office of Pesticide Programs

Goals, Objectives, and Subobjectives

I. Agency Goal 3: Safe Food. All foods Americans produce or consume will continue to be safe for all people to eat.

II. Objective Statement: (OPPTS OBJ #1)

1. By 2005, there will be a 50% reduction in use of pesticides that have been classified as having the highest potential to cause cancer.
2. By 2005, there will be a 100% reduction of pesticides used on food that do not meet the new statutory standard of "reasonable certainty of no harm".

III. Sub-objectives:

1a. By 2005, double the number of registrations for safer chemicals and biopesticides.
1b. By 2005, there will be a 50% reduction in the agricultural acres treated with pesticides that have carcinogenic and neurotoxic characteristics.
1c. By 2005, there will be a 50% reduction in the detection of pesticides that are currently classified as carcinogens or may have neurotoxic properties.
2a. By 2005, complete active ingredient and product reregistration for all pesticides being reregistered under FIFRA '88.
2b. By 2005, complete 90% of the tolerance (maximum residue level) reassessment for all pesticide tolerances.

IV. Program Components supporting the objectives and sub-objectives:

• Registration
• Reregistration/Special Review

I. Agency Goal 4: Ensure that Communities, Work Places, and Ecosystems are Safe from Pollution. By relying on pollution prevention and other approaches that eliminate, reduce or minimize emissions, and contamination with respect to how we produce, consume, use, reuse, and recycle materials, all Americans will live and work in safe environments and healthy communities. We will safeguard ecosystems to promote health of natural communities.

II. Objective Statement: (OPPTS OBJ #5)

1. By 2005, public and ecosystem exposure to pesticides and related pollutants will be reduced by implementation of improved cultural practices, enhanced public education, and registration of products with reduced toxicity and enhanced environmental characteristics (i.e. reduced leachability, reduced persistence).

III. Sub-objectives:

1. By 2005, the number of workers with adverse health effects caused by acute poisoning from pesticides will be reduced by 50% from 1995 levels.
2. By 2005, the quantity of biopesticides used for agriculture will double from 1995 levels.
3. By 2005, consumer and commercial nonagricultural use of pesticides with significant neurotoxic effects will be reduced by 50%.
4. By 2005, the use of pesticides in the U. S. that have high potential to leach into and persist in groundwater will be reduced by 50% from 1995 levels.
5. By 2005, the use of pesticides In the U.S. that have high potential to cause significant acute toxicity to fish or wildlife will be reduced by 50% from 1995 levels.
6. By 2005, 100% of handlers and farm workers using pesticides will be adequately trained in the safe handling, use, and disposal of pesticides.
7. By 2005, 80 agricultural and non-agricultural pesticide user groups will implement stewardship strategies to reduce pesticide risk through the use of Integrated Pest Management (IPM).
8. By 2005, alternatives for 80% of the pesticidal uses of methyl bromide (an ozone depleting substance) will be registered.
9. By 2005, adequate protection for endangered species will be included in all pesticide labels.

IV. Program Components supporting the objectives and sub-objectives:

• Field Implementation
• Registration
• Reregistration/Special Review

I. Agency Goal 7: Empowering People With Information and Education – Expanding Their Right to Know. Information on the state of the environment will be user friendly and widely accessible, increasing opportunities for Americans to learn about the environment and fostering environmental stewardship through information exchange within and among communities and across economic sectors.

II. Objective Statement:

1. Provide information, in a usable form and format, to allow consumers to make informed decisions about where they live and work; what potential exposures are acceptable; and the general environmental health of themselves and their families. (OPPTS OBJ #2)

III. Sub-objectives:

1. By 2005, current, accurate, and easily accessible information about pesticide products and policy decisions will be publicly available, including on the Internet.
2. By 2005, EPA will have agreements with most of the major food retailers to distribute information to consumers about pesticides.

IV. Program Components supporting the objectives and sub-objectives:

• Field Implementation
• Right to Know
• Environmental Stewardship

I. Agency Goal 8: Develop and Implement Innovative (Nontraditional) Approaches for Current and Future Environmental Problems. EPA will develop and implement new tools and concepts to provide the best possible scientific basis for addressing current and future environmental problems. It will also establish nontraditional approaches that will permit environmental protection programs to transcend the single media-based programs and move the Agency towards truly integrated and continually improving environmental protection.

II. Objective Statement: (OPPTS OBJ #3)

1. By 2005, improve strategies, tools, and approaches needed to protect human health and the environment from unreasonable adverse effects of pesticides.

III. Sub-objectives:

1. By 2005, establish 10 cross media environmental protection projects using voluntary public/private partnerships.
2. By 2005, EPA will develop or revise 100% of the regulations, policies, and guidelines, for registering safer pesticides (including biopesticides) to improve and streamline the registration process.
3. By 2005, improve, develop, and use risk assessment tools that address aggregate exposure/risk and common mechanism of toxicity.

IV. Program Components supporting the objectives and sub-objectives:

• Field Implementation Right to Know
• Right to Know

(EPA Press Release March 18, 1997)